Hyderabad: In the heart of Telangana’s tech-savvy revolution, a sinister plot has unraveled, exposing how a noble push for paperless land deals became a playground for hackers and hustlers. What started as a beacon of transparency—digitizing dusty land records to banish bribes and bogus claims—has morphed into a multi-crore heist that’s left the government reeling and citizens questioning if their property papers are safe in the cloud.
Operators at humble online service hubs, meant to help farmers and homeowners with quick clicks, instead teamed up with shadowy cybercriminals. Armed with sneaky malware, they hijacked the state’s prized portal Bhu Bharati, siphoning off a staggering Rs 3.90 crore in registration fees and stamp duties.
Forged signatures, tampered docs, and diverted payments—it’s a digital drama straight out of a thriller novel.Warangal’s top cop, Commissioner Sunpreet Singh, dropped the bombshell: 15 arrests, including ringleaders Basavaraju and Jella Pandu, with nine more fugitives dodging the dragnet.
Raids scooped up Rs 63.19 lakh in cold cash, frozen bank accounts, luxury rides, gadgets galore, and property papers worth a cool crore. The scam’s epicenter? Yadagirigutta’s service centers, spilling over to Janagama and Yadadri districts, where operators shuttered shops, switched off phones, and vanished like ghosts.
Rewind to the origins: Back in October 2020, amid cheers and camera flashes, then-CM K. Chandrashekar Rao unveiled Dharani at a Medchal tahsildar’s office. Billed as India’s pioneering all-in-one land management marvel by the Revenue Department, it promised to digitize everything from farm plots to city lots, slashing red tape and fraud.
Fast access to records, merged surveys, maps, and registrations—it was the fix for age-old woes like fake deeds and endless disputes that had farmers fighting in courts for generations. But paradise glitched. Tech bugs, user woes, and hidden backdoors let fraudsters feast. Enter Bhu Bharati in April 2025, born from the Telangana Bhu Bharati Act, a beefed-up reboot at bhubharati.telangana.gov.in.
Integrating revenue, stamps, surveys, and even special lands like forests and wakfs, it aimed for ironclad accuracy. Just weeks ago, in early January 2026, Revenue Minister Ponguleti Srinivas Reddy touted upgrades for ultimate transparency, eyeing a March rollout. Yet, as this scandal screams, even “foolproof” systems crack under cyber sieges.
The modus operandi chills: MeeSeva and CSC operators—hundreds dotting erstwhile Nalgonda with 242 MeeSeva spots and over 250 CSCs—cozied up to hackers. Malware infiltrated payment gateway, rerouting crores while faking flawless transactions. District collectors are now grilling tahsildars for complicity, as binami ops snake into neighboring areas. “Exploited loopholes for outright looting,” Singh thundered, warning of eroded trust in e-governance.
As probe digsdeeper, with special squads on the hunt, this saga spotlights technology’s treacherous flip side. Born from a vision to cleanse corruption-riddled land dealings, these portals now demand cyber armour.Will Telangana’s digital dawn rise stronger, or will more shadows lurk? In the race to modernize, stepped vigilance is seen as the ultimate firewall.
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